#ThisIsNotAnIndian

This work confronts what is societally considered Native American Indian and what is not. The work challenges the places within society’s mind where Indians are allowed and expected to exist, as well as the visual notion of what the Indian should look like in those places.

The works presented as Natural History Museum Artifacts are handmade silver gelatin photographs of cheaply made costume jewelry typically sold in Halloween shops, which are used to dress up as Indians. The titles of the works reflect the actual names, dates and places of origin given by the manufacturers.

The photographs are displayed as artifacts in custom made museum-like cases. They are presented “curly” or “un-flattened” to convey a sense of objectification of the precious artifact, which is in fact the photographic print and not the living people or living culture referenced in the costume jewelry.

The locked museum-like cases act as a metaphor for locking in an idealized vision of Native American people and their many different cultures, safe from change, progression, advancement, growth and the future.

Other works in the series are staged tableau photographs placing Indians in unexpected places and scenarios.

Item: Indian Breast-Plate Tribe: Funny Fashion Origin/Region: Made in China

Item: Indian Headdress Tribe: Charades Costumes Origin/Region: Made in China

2014

Item: Western Headdress Tribe: CostumesUSA Origin/Region: Made in China

2014

The Long Road

2012

Fancy Dancer II

2014

Keepin' Up With the Joneses

2014

Act a Fool

2014

James the Gentle Gentrifier

2014

Stoic to Heroic

A grid of self-portraits capturing the subtle shifts in demeanor which define much of the historical photographic identity of Native Americans as an unflinching (uncivilized) and proud (savage) people to be objectified.

Stoic to Heroic

2014

Indian Performance Prints

Prints recording a contemporary Indian, myself, carrying out many of the same routines and rituals as the majority of Americans in the 21st century (taking a shower, watching porn…etc.) and commenting on aspects of the universality of contemporary social identity in the United States.

Indian Checking Facebook

2012

Indian Drinking a Mexican Coke

2012

Indian Listening to the Beatles on iPod

2012

Indian Pumping Gas

2012

Indian Scratching a Lottery Ticket

2012

Indian Taking a Shower

2012

Indian Watching Porn

2012

Indian Standing In This Exact Spot Looking At Contemporary Native American Art II (performance still)

2012

Indian Performance Prints (installed)

2012

Indians For Sale

This work incorporates narratives of perception, misinformed stereotypes, false imagery, representation and identity, and the commodification of Native American Indian culture.

Blood Quantum Physics, questions the current use of blood quantum policies (CDIB) that determine Native heritage by the ratio of “Indian” to “Non-Indian” blood. As a member of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe of Oklahoma, I am diagnosed with a 17/32 degree of Indian blood. The ladders are a metaphor for our DNA and more specifically as a representation of the quantity of Indian blood I possess. The noose, representing the blood quantum policies, questions the ramifications of their usage in determining who can and cannot be Indian. The policy creates an impasse, gradually decreasing ratios by generation and inevitably suffocating lineage.

Portraits of an Indians uses the big game hunters’ approach by capturing, killing and presenting false Indian imagery and the commodification of culture and by rendering it defeated, dead and unusable.

Nocturnal Myths, Lies & Other Stories, a collection of theatrical tableau photographs, confronts and contextualizes the contemporary Native American in real time through a series of unresolved situations. The scenes are captured from a voyeuristic standpoint, allowing the viewer to use his/her own empirical reasoning for the resolution of a scene.

The diptych The RoyalKing Joseph I vs. The Noble Chief Josephcalls upon the viewers’ subjectivity and preconceived notions based on the same information presented differently in order to misconstrue perception. The diptych also relies on the use of language and explores how it has been used historically to place or classicize people, such as referring to a group as a tribe rather than a nation, or brave vs. heroic, or in this case specifically royal vs. noble. The term “versus” suggests that one or the other must be accurate when in fact both depictions are considered to be false imagery. The viewer is left to contemplate which one is preferable based on those preconceived notions and how visual culture functions.

Blood Quantum Physics

2012

Blood Quantum Physics (detail)

2012

Blood Quantum Physics

2012

Portraits of an Indians

2012

Portraits of an Indians II

2012

Portraits of an Indians III

2012

Portraits of an Indians IV

2012

Portraits of an Indians V

2012

Portraits of an Indians Trophy Wall

2012

B.efore I.ndian A.ctivation

2011

Fancy Dancer

2012

Indian Awaiting Reparations

2011

Red Horn the Redeemer

2012

Counting Coup

2011

The Royal King Joseph I VS. The Noble Chief Joseph (installed)

2012

The Royal King Joseph I VS. The Noble Chief Joseph (detail)

2012

The Royal King Joseph I VS. The Noble Chief Joseph (detail)

2012

Five Minute Indians

Five Minute Indians asks viewers to quickly dress up and to photograph themselves wearing stereotypical adornment. This interactive explores the mainstream misuse of the Native image, as the Indians most viewers will be familiar with are the one’s seen in movies, team mascots, popular fashion and other cultural outlets.

Five-Minute Indians (Photo Booth)

2012

Five-Minute Indians (installation image)

2012

Five-Minute Indians (installation image)

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

Five-Minute Indians

2012

@NDNstagram

An online campaign challenging the expected social identity of a Native American traversing everyday life. #ThisIsNotAnIndian

Indian as a Phoenix Rising or Some Such Shit 2016

Indian of Perpetual Reparations 2016

Indian Ordering a Pizza 2017

Indian thinking, "Fuck This Shit!" 2016

Indian Drinking Strawberry-Lemonade 2015

Indian Standing Next To a Soda Machine 2014

Indian Stretching 2015

Indian Swiping Left 2015

Indian Tying His Shoe 2014

"I" is for Indian

“I” is for Indian: A Children’s Activity Book for Adults, is an adult activity and coloring book about Native Americans. Using humor and irony, it informs or re-informs participants about cultural appropriation, mis-representation, social biases and commercialization of culture. With a familiar, child-like approach, the activity book exploits our formative years and the way we learn as children where, ironically, much of the stereotypical imagery and social biases are first learned. For instance, a color-by-number of a stereotypical Indian illustration will reveal an entirely blackened page when the activity is performed. This blackening out completely voids the misinformed, stereotypical imagery and renders it non-visible, non-existent, and un-useable.

“I” is for Indian: A Children’s Activity Book for Adults, Page 18, Your Face HereIndian

2017

“I” is for Indian: A Children’s Activity Book for Adults, Page 6, Dot-to-Dot Indian

2017

“I” is for Indian: A Children’s Activity Book for Adults, Page 3, Color-by-NumberIndian

2017

"I" is For Indian (detail)

The Unforeseen Memory of Abundant Life

"In celebration of Blue Star Contemporary’s 30th birthday, Homage pays tribute to the exhibition that started it all back in June of 1986, The Blue Star Exhibition. The selected artists were asked to respond to an artwork from the original exhibition, but were only given the title and description details, and prompted to make a new work inspired by these details, without ever having seen the original work."

I approached the title “The Unforeseen Memory of Abundant Life” (originally by Danville Chadbourne 1985-86) by first exposing its seemingly endless chain of meanings. Not finding a clear direction in the instability of those multiple meanings, I thought about the title at a more basic level, deconstructing the phrase into a single word which carries its own definition as heavily as its symbolic weight — “loss.” I wanted the concept to be universal, focusing on a growing list of civil inequities currently crossing cultures and the broad range of human rights issues which have risen to the surface even more dramatically since January 20, 2017. The changing political atmosphere is rapidly reshaping American culture. The print and its resemblance to a scratch off ticket aims twofold at this occurrence by proposing a ludicrous governmental strategy for enacting policy and by suggesting that the privilege of attaining basic human rights for some marginalized groups would be like winning the lottery. Uncovering “prizes” like NEA/NEH grant, full citizenship and reproductive rights brings to light the looming sense of loss we may soon face as artists, women, minorities, uninsured, underserved, or undocumented.